4:12 AM | Abandoned BMT Broadway Line Tunnel, Brooklyn
The stench of ozone and fermented spray paint guided me through collapsed tunnels where 1930s subway maps fused with fresh alchemical graffiti. My corrupted hippocampus translated the neon tags into warning verses:
Memory-Loaded Threat Assessment:
● Argent Trace Drones: 87% probability of containing memory-leeching nano-runes
● Ravenous Glyph Blueprint Decay Rate: 0.8% per minute (now 3.9% legible)
● Wraith Claw Metastasis: Hippocampus sector B-12 fully crystallized (-12% emotional recall capacity)
The "third rail's lament" materialized as a phosphorescent mural depicting Odin's sacrifice - if the Allfather had been crucified on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. A graffiti artist in a respirator mask materialized from the concrete itself, her spray cans leaking liquid obsidian that formed protective Elder Futhark rings.
"You reek of corporate memory-theft," she hissed, pressing a stencil gun to my temporal lobe. "Prove you're not another Argent skinwalker."
Memory Expenditure:
● Sacrificed 8% of Dad's funeral memory to manifest his suicide note's watermark through tear ducts
● Activated [Mnemonic Combustion] residual effect: First-grade report cards burned into temporary shield
The artist's mask retracted, revealing fractalized Celtic knot tattoos across her face. "Call me Rook. Your sister's blood patterns match our stolen archive from the 1927 Alchemists' Union fire." She threw me a spray can bubbling with mercury and crow's blood. "Let's correct corporate history."
4:55 AM | Subway Forge Initiation
Rook's crew emerged from subway tiles - Vietnam War draft dodgers turned glyph hackers, Y2K prepper teens wielding RFID-chiseled runestones. Their forge pulsed with the metro's latent electromagnetic field, repurposing stolen Argent tech:
● Turnstiles reforged into memory capacitors
● MetroCard readers reprogrammed as soul-fragment scanners
● Rat colonies genetically enhanced to digest surveillance data
"Your Ravenous Glyph isn't a weapon - it's a receipt," Rook declared, projecting holograms from a modified Metro-North train horn. "Argent's CEO harvested it during your sister's bone marrow treatment. They're reverse-engineering the 8th Metallurgical Art - Memory Arbitrage."
5:30 AM | Live Tagging Counter-Ritual
We struck as the E train roared through adjacent tracks. Rook's crew painted anti-corporate sigils across tunnel walls while I transmuted:
● Sacrificed 15% of June's laughter memories to convert third rail static into temporal glue
● Forged Argent drone shrapnel into Norse bindrunes using stolen MTA welding tools
Critical Memory Loss Alert:
● Mother's voice now replaced by subway conductor announcements
● High school locker combination overwritten with glyph coordinates
6:17 AM | Argent Counterstrike
Voss' voice boomed through tunnel speakers, weaponizing my new vulnerabilities:
● Played June's corrupted lullaby recordings through rusted rails
● Projected Mom's pixelated face onto toxic mold formations
● Sent memory-repossessor drones shaped like childhood teddy bears
Ritual Triage:
Rook initiated [Sleipnir Protocol], tattooing emergency mnemonics onto my optic nerves using electrified spray tips. "We'll embed anchor memories in subway infrastructure - but you'll lose random recollections whenever trains pass!"
7:02 AM | Partial Victory Extraction
The counter-ritual collapsed Argent's Brooklyn memory-gravity wells. As dawn filtered through manhole covers, Rook shoved a modified MetroCard into my bullet wound:
"This holds your last intact memory of June's ninth birthday. Swipe it at any turnstile to manifest temporary shields... until the MTA's dynamic pricing algorithms consume it."
My phone buzzed with Argent's retaliatory strike - security footage from Dragon's Breath Arcade showed Wu's cryo-chamber being hauled into an Argent truck... by Rook's double wearing an LIRR conductor uniform. The ravenous glyph in my palm pulsed in sync with the tunnel's newly painted murals - now subtly rearranged into Argent's corporate logo.
Memory Ledger Update:
● Gained: Subway Mnemonic Network (12% control)
● Lost: All memories of father's voice (sacrificed to power Sleipnir Protocol)
● New Corruption: MTA Fare Calculation Algorithms Infesting Episodic Memory